This edition of the Missal highlights tension, and its use on the spiritual path. The containment and use of tension to bring about spiritual exaltation has been practiced for centuries. Fasting and celibacy have long been used to this effect, creating and storing tension normally dissipated in everyday life. The energy saved and stored by reducing the drains demanded by nature can be re-channeled into answering spiritual questions. The normal system of following desire and avoiding fears can be lessened, and the energy and time redirected into the questioning process of self-discovery. This is a reversing of the energy vector by turning it away from the game of life and pointing it within, gaining insight into why we do what we do, and ultimately who we really are.

For some, this process starts when life begins to be seen as a no-win situation. This may be brought about by trauma, sickness, insight or even a dream. We see that death levels the playing field, and life has no meaning in and of itself if looked at closely and with dispassion. This questioning of life itself can create a tension, furthering the search for truth.

" We look out the window at this point and observe the world as a sorrowful slaughterhouse, a place of blood and carnage, wherein the most noble efforts of nature and the whole system of Tension lead and evolve only to semen, blood, and blockheads."

- Richard Rose

The practice of using tension to further an aim can be seen as triangulation. We move along a baseline between fear and desire, maintaining through tension a seeming balance between the two forces. If we question the process in its entirety we may see the futility of the system, and thus move up and out of the trap. From the higher vantage point we see that the game of striving for what you want and avoiding what you don't ultimately collapses with old age and death. This point can be thought of as the apex of a triangle, above the line of desire and fear, the place where life is lived for a higher purpose. We then are taking care of our life in order to keep it functioning well while pursuing our search for truth, rather than to feel good and not feel bad, only. Life becomes a field for education, rather than a party.

If we keep up the pressure by continuing to question life as well as ourselves, we stand a chance at actually transcending both. We find ourselves in a place where life, and the function of it we used to call "me", is seen as a self sustaining process which may actually function better without the ego's endless meddling. We can then take the energy we formerly used in maintaining the "me" or "I", and allow it to flow in the direction of our search for Truth and may come to understand that action and awareness are quite capable of not interfering with one another. Action can continue unfettered while being impartially observed, while awareness also does not need a "doer" to function. The spell of identification with life leads us to think we must keep it afloat by sheer mental and emotional effort, and we also have been led to believe that awareness must somehow be created or enabled by some clever act of thought. The endless play of tension between the opposites is life itself, the dance of the viewer and his view, and its transcendence is freedom.

Trap: Believing in escapist fantasies. Many of us escape from life's pain and frustrations by traveling to a dream world in which there is no resistance to our being fulfilled. We think that "if only" we could somehow find this place of least resistance, we would then, and only then, be happy. The actual net effect of this is to keep us out of the present moment and longing for a future where we will finally get what we want, but which can never be. "Poor pitiful me.....if only...."

Trick: Learning the value of tension. To get in shape, we subject our bodies to forms of tension by working out. The mind and emotions are no different. Without practical problems to solve, our intellect is never improved. Without failure and trouble, our emotions are never tempered. Without struggling with great perplexity, our intuition is never called upon to speak.

I've found when viewing landscape photos that the mind plays a trick. I look at the beautiful scene and imagine myself there, carefree and full of wonder. But if I look at the same type of shot that I myself took, say of a mountain vista, I can see the trick. I can remember that when taking the photo, I was actually cold, uncomfortable, the wind was biting, I was hungry, sore, and bone tired. It was not the nirvana of the senses that the vista suggests. Our imagination loves to play this trick. It conjures lovely scenes and leads us to believe there will be no tension there, no resistance. Such a place is seldom found outside the mind's fantasies, and even if it were, we would soon stagnate and grow weary of its bland, one dimensional lack of substance.

Most of us go through life with no clear awareness of our limited time and energy, but instead continue to plan and plot our way along as if nothing will ever really change. We live to have fun, known as the pursuit of happiness, making our forays into the world of pleasure from a base of imagined security. Driven by the fear that our security is tenuous at best, we rush to have even more fun, before the circle of our dissipation and paranoia collapses in on itself. We never question our motivations or bother to define what we mean by happiness, perhaps because of an inner intuition that that would take the fun out of it. Let's take a look at what this pursuit really is, and how it can be turned from a struggle downhill into frustration and bitterness into a change of being.

This pursuit of happiness can best be defined as the pursuit of a fading memory, a memory of a time when some outside agent gave us a thrill of such magnitude we can't forget it, or else it relieved our anxiety so well as to leave us in a state of unusual peace. Being creatures of habit, we try repeating the same sequence of events that gave us the previous result. This cycle is sooner or later found to be one of ever-decreasing returns. We find the thrill or release lessen, while the inducing agent is needed in ever greater quantity. We never question the process itself. We never wonder why we even need an outside agent in order to feel happy, at peace, or complete. Only when the agent turns on us, and becomes the deliverer of pain and misery instead, do we stop. Even then, we still seldom question the process, but think we can beat the system by getting a new, improved agent and becoming cleverer in its application.

This unconscious trap of worshipping our own weakness keeps us from becoming strong. We fail to realize that the tensions we feel, as anxieties or prompting's, are the very things that will free us from all need, if we stand up to them. By giving in to every prod and poke that comes into our consciousness, we give away our time and energy to nothing, and keep nothing with which to build our mental strength and intuition. Through resisting these daily irritations and promptings, we save our vitality and time, which can then be put to use on the spiritual path. We also become something, something that has a greater capacity. We can think clearer, have more time for study, and come to have a resistance to the inner noise, which used to send us running for distraction or numbness. We will have increased our capacity for storing tension dramatically, much like putting our money in a bank that pays high interest, to be used for something of true value when the time presents itself, rather than spending every dime in our pocket, and relegating ourselves to living paycheck to paycheck. Eventually, we will also have gained enough inner quiet to possibly hear something from within, giving our intuition a chance to be heard.

"Be very careful that you do not unconsciously assume that nervous tension is power. This is vital. Watch yourself the next time you work toward some goal. Look very closely to discover tense feelings and nervous thoughts whirling around inside. Do not let them deceive you into assuming that they are creative forces; they are not. They are thieves of genuine powers. As always, your awareness of their thievery is your first fine step toward casting them out. " - Vernon Howard

The energy we feel as excitement or thrills, is not the energy we are after. This is just the frenzy of a nervous mind, of thoughts and needs wanting to take advantage of us in exchange for a brief moment of peace when our stolen energy is gone. True strength and peace is in an increased capacity for tension. By increasing this capacity, we increase our resistance to the effects of life. We become calmer in the face of stress, and can think clearer under pressure. By virtue of our increased intuition, we may even begin to see through many of the traps we formerly succumbed to. Our patience will increase, and we will not panic and run when unflattering truths about ourselves come into the light of day. We will be able to sit and meditate for the lengths of time necessary to gain insight into these truths about ourselves, no longer giving into distraction, fear or pride.

Through this reversal of the trap of dissipation into the discipline of containment, we gain a chance at freedom, and have become something more than a utility of forces unseen. We now have the possibility of using our limited time and energy in real ways in the pursuit of self-discovery. Our imaginary life of having our cake and getting to eat it, too, becomes instead a life with a true direction, towards truth and self-knowledge leading to real happiness. The Kingdom of Heaven is truly within, and we will not find it by taking our pleasure and meaning from without, from the world and its ceaseless change and pain.

The next time you feel an inner prod, an urge, an itch from below which you know can only be scratched at the price of your peace of mind, do not think that relief is in doing what it wants. Try resisting, turn away. We graduate from crawling by gaining enough strength to stand up and walk. Walking upright depends on having enough capacity for tension to resist falling down. Be patient, and learn to walk without wobbling. The view is better and you can cover greater ground. By this resistance, become something greater than the world, and take your meaning and definition from the silent strength you then find within.

" People are able to continue living or tolerate life by putting serious thoughts as far back as possible. Something inside the individual does not wish to examine its potential for oblivion. The human mind does not want to see anything negative about itself.